


Haphazard

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25964359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Cygnus's, my OC's, origin story.Unfinished.
Kudos: 1





	Haphazard

Cygnus felt slightly sore at the feeling of heat at his back under the intense sun as the sky laid out clear. The market stunk of fleshy, fetid meat sitting out as the flies mingled about, briny fish sprawled out on steel platters, stained with coagulated blood. The pale boy cringed at their stench, though it was always a smell that always persisted around them. It made him shudder, cowering his nose beneath the thick wool of his collar. The others hated standing around this place, too, though it sat inconveniently aside the rustic pub that stood as a placeholder for the city’s busiest communication hub. Fliers stuck there, hear-sayers and crowds gathered for news, and here they could find valuable work.  
The gang, confidently boasted as the bounty-hunting crew, consisting of Cygnus, the meekest of the three and a quiet fellow although the most observant and poignant, Etremond, a self-sufficient and the most level-headed , and Raja, a boisterous, excitable young lady, was sitting along the brick ruins of a collapsed residential area. They’d been sitting there for a long time now under the sun. Most of the shade was occupied by the marketplace, where they were always shooed off as daunting noisy people bothering actual buyers.  
Work was slow today. The gravel stuck to the ends of Cygnus’s shoes, cutting slightly at the rubber underneath. Raja huffed at her consorts, clicking her heels at the walls. “Not a single individual looking for helping hands--not even for grunt work.” She groaned. “Business used to be so good, now look at us.”  
Cygnus shook his head in disarray.  
“It’s just today, though. We’ve made good reaps last week.” Etremond retorted optimistically, though Raja frowned at the observation.   
“At this point, we might as well consider today a loss! I quit my position at my office for a better purpose, you know!” She waved her staff over at Etremond’s face. “As fun as all this may be, I’m not enjoying all this downtime.”  
Etremond shrugged, keeling over at her proximity. “Something may come soon. We still have the other half of the day. Perhaps it’s just our luck today.”  
“Luck? You never believe in luck.” Scoffed Raja, crossing her arms at Etremond’s humor.  
“At this point, I’ll believe in anything to really catch a good opening today. Even a small task for, what, a silver trimming?”  
Cygnus sat with his mind occupied as he observed the passersby as the other two droned on about their impatience. He took a long sigh into his slouched position over the ground, though a small boy in his periphery caught his eye. The boy had been carrying along a handful of fliers on his side, handing them out and attaching them to buildings. Attentive to the boy’s distressed look, Cygnus shot a look over to the other two to see if they noticed as well.  
They were still calling potshots at each other like a married couple, Cygnus groaned and clicked his tongue to call their attention. They stopped immediately in the middle of their irritative conversation and looked at Cygnus with wide eyes. “We’ve got ourselves a job,” Cygnus smirked quietly to the others, directing at the boy. As the boy left with a flier attached to the stone wall of a building, the trio rushed to observe the bounty paper: a missing cat, lost for several weeks out to the wilderness beyond the city limits. The reward: 3 silver, likely the child’s saved pocket money.  
“...Really? When I said I’d take any job for as little…” Etremond rolled his eyes at the ridiculous bounty.   
“Shush, you. It’s a customer willing to pay! Any bounty’s better than no bounty!” Raja raised her brows at the crinkled flier as she ripped it off the wall to take along. “C’mon. Let’s start looking.” Raja stomped forward against the crowd, tugging Cygnus and Etremond behind her by their wrists. The two boys looked at each other wearily.   
…  
As they gathered at the edge of the city, foliage began to eat at the landscape around them. The trio had been surrounded by trees and vegetation, untouched for the moment by humans. The ground lost its road markings. As the area became more remote, the group shirked closer to each other in case they’d separate.   
“Never been this far out before…” Raja shuddered, her hands clasped together worriedly around her staff.   
“Don’t worry. I have a map with me.” Etremond shrugged his heavy backpack over his shoulder.  
“What good will that do when we have no clue where we are now?”   
“We can always just turn back,” Cygnus sighed, quieting the other two.   
“And miss out on our day’s only work? I don’t think so.” Etremond huffed into his surly overcoat. “No way am I settling for a loss in our profits so far. Business in the bounty-oddjob field has been bustling since the council’s been appointed this early year. I don’t plan on stopping!”   
Cygnus shook his head in agonized humility. “Of course, to each his own. But I’ll just take a slow day and move on.”   
Raja twirled herself facing the other two, as she led them ahead into the wilderness, covered in thickets. “Nonsense! Never stop at the bare minimum! My mother always told me that advice, you, of all people, should follow by that idea! Cygnus, you know what I said earlie--”   
It wasn’t long until Cygnus would block out the incessant preaching Raja did. 

In the corner of his periphery, he could sense the disturbed rustling of brush among the vegetation in the shadows. An animal, likely. His eyes were trained to notice creatures as a hunter. Cygnus stopped in his tracks to observe. The cat? The thought raced in his mind. Cat. Cat cat cat. He stuck his body into the tall grass rummaging about in the brushes. Cygnus could hear the creature rustle about wearily. He made a soft clicking noise to call it out.   
“Raja, could you recall that cat’s name, again?” 

“Oh, boy. I don’t really remember…” She shook her head, recollecting the flier from before in her pocket. “The kid didn’t specify one!” 

Distracted, Cygnus snapped his attention away from the creature in the grass and it ran off ahead, though he was able to catch a glimpse of its figure. A cat! Cygnus called the others. “It’s over here! This way, guys.” 

…   
The group followed the cat’s direction aimlessly for about half an hour. “I swear, it was just right in front of us,” Groaned Etremond. The trio sighed wearily.   
“We’ve been searching for hours!” Raja huffed. “It’s hopeless! That cat’s gone for good!”   
As the two sat down exasperated, Cygnus could feel some sort of bearing weight at his feet.   
Something felt like a pulling force at his soles, a magical energy against a forceful direction. The feeling was weak, though Cygnus felt it was only his mind playing tricks on him. 

The sensation in his feet would not go away. Cygnus followed his instincts again, a wary look in his stark gaze. Around the bend of thick treeline and vinery, an enclosure opened out to Cygnus, a secret stairway in the ground.   
His eyes opened wide at the discovery. “Guys.” He beckoned silently, gesturing as they came over to the mystery in the soil.   
“A staircase? Here? How interesting…” Etremond rubbed his chin.  
“Whoa! I thought no one has ever reached out this far.” Raja stared in awe.  
Etremond looked around, clutching his spectacles close to his nose. “We have to investigate further. I want to see what’s at the other end.”  
…  
As they finished the last few steps of the archaic staircase within the ground, the group reached a deadend, a tall, decrepit door in a large room. The door appeared unmoveable, heavy and thick. It was clear there was a large magical, blue glow to the door, emanating like a thick glaze around the frame.  
“A door seal. How intriguing. Someone has been here, and someone does not want us in.” Etremond stroked his chin. “Iiiinteresting!” He smirked cheekily. “Amazing find, Cygnus!”  
“Thanks.” Cygnus shrugged. At the sides of the room, Cygnus could observe other corridors. The boy went off to inspect, leaving the other two to observe the door, incredibly distracted by it.   
\---  
“What do you think lies beyond the door, Etremond? Treasure?” Raja wondered, her eyes gleaming in childish intrigue.   
“Unlikely, but it’s definitely something off-limits. This seal… It’s so powerful. I can feel it even from so far away. A big-hat mage has to have set it on this door. Maybe even a council mage.” Etremond observed the door, though still not wary enough to touch it. “This seal was meant to harm whoever touches it. Don’t touch it, Raja. Who knows what harm it’ll cause.”  
“We can still tamper with it, right?”  
“I mean… no harm in that, I suppose.”  
The two mages reveled in each other’s glory, holding their staves up to the door.   
“Remember to deflect whatever defensive magic it throws at you, otherwise you’ll get hit with the nasty stuff.” Etremond issued, his staff arm raised stiff in conjunction with Raja’s.  
“Got it.” 

As they cast their auric energies against the door, the door swallowed the magic like a swelled balloon full to burst, and hurled it twice-fold their power. The mages quickly responded with a reaction to cast a shielding spell to reflect the door’s defensive magic, though its force was massive compared to their own. The shield could only protect them so well until the wave of energy collapsed over them and their surroundings.  
“Hnngh! Raja, hold still! The barrie--” Etremond held close to Raja as the energy swarmed around them in their reflective barrier like a tidal wave, enveloping them massively in a shroud of white.   
\---  
Cygnus had left them for a while now. Whatever nonsense those two were up to, Cygnus wanted no part of their mad magic tricks. Those two were up to no good. That door was sealed for a purpose, and whatever it was, the magic looked more powerful than Cygnus has ever seen in his lifetime as a mage.   
In his own self-funded expedition around the decrepit tunnel, Cygnus didn’t really find much aside from an empty storage room. He sighed, finding that this whole trip into the wilderness for a cat for a measly 15 silver was not worth it at all, even if it meant more productivity in today. Those idiots, he growled. “Idiots!” He pouted, holding his hands crossed in frustration. As he headed back towards the main room with the sealed door, he could feel the two casting something from far down the hall. Cygnus’s face paled as the harrowing realization came that those idiots would try to tamper with that powerful seal. What became a grumpy stomp back would come to a desperate sprint back to stop them.  
“Stop, you two! S-st--” He could see the two pull up the spell, Cygnus had no idea the door would hurl the magic back. Unable to react quick enough, the wave of energy collapsed over Cygnus like a flood to a stalk of wheat, the boy writhed in immense pain as the magic energy enveloped him. Cygnus had nothing to protect him from the seal magic. He could feel the power dig beneath his skin in a violent, thrashing manner. He could taste copper in his mouth, a cold, simultaneously hot sporadic sensation in his limbs. “F-ffu--ck,” He cried in agony as the sensation lasted a while. Through the feeling he wanted to call out for help to the others, but he was unable to muster a word in pain.   
…  
The two woke up outside in the forest unscathed the next morning, though dazed by what happened to them moments ago. “Wha… did we doze off?” Raja jumped from her lax state, shocked to be sleeping on the ground.   
“Seems so. Odd…” Etremond analyzed his belongings for anything lost during their sleep.   
“Cygnus… Where did he go?” Etremond raised his brow.   
“I’m right here.” Cygnus emerged, also normal, from a tree beside them. “I dozed off, too. I guess that cat was gone, after all. Just our luck, huh?”  
The other two tilted their heads in a stupor. They felt like something was missing, though they couldn’t put their finger on it.   
Cygnus broke their stupefied silence. “Let’s head back. Somehow…”  
…  
As the feeling couldn’t shake off out of Cygnus, he felt it pin him down mentally. Get it out, He begged to himself, clutching his head. Out… He groaned as the magic surged around him. In him, he felt a tinge of hunger. Hunger… His mind dimmed for a moment. For then, he found himself struck in the middle of a city street again in the middle of the night. ...Pl...ease, His mind ached. Another blank in his memory, and he found himself within an unfamiliar building, his limbs bloodied and the taste of blood and copper in his teeth, as though he’d gnashed flesh in his jaws. “No…” His mind came to, and he found himself stunned at the sight in front of him. The magic from the seal had condemned him to a bloodlust he had no control over. He clutched his body as he felt immensely unstable, trembling in agony. He escaped the scene of bodies within the strangers’ abode, seeking out his friends in the forest again. “No…!”   
…  
He tried as hard as he could to clean the blood off of him and dispose the dirtied rags somewhere. Cygnus felt control steer into him as daylight came, like the magic submerged from his mind somehow. He had found the others, untouched and passed out some large distance from the door. They appeared okay, and that had put Cygnus’s worried mind to ease. He let out a relieved sigh, though a heavily shaken one from the scene earlier. He sat down, exasperated from the view to take a rest.  
…  
“Cygnus, you look awful!” Raja rose her palm to his forehead with a worried look. “Are you alright?”


End file.
